


winning the (quidditch) cup

by screamlet



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-10-31 23:07:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10909341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/screamlet/pseuds/screamlet
Summary: After the end-of-year exams and feasting at the Orlean School outside Washington, there was one more ritual for the student body: the week-long Quidditch tournament between the four house teams. As it had been for the last two years running, the teams to emerge from their changing rooms and march side-by-side to the pitch on the final day were Professor Backstrom’s Green Kingfishers and Professor Ovechkin’s Red Owls.





	winning the (quidditch) cup

**Author's Note:**

  * For [babygotbackstrom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/babygotbackstrom/gifts), [angularmomentum](https://archiveofourown.org/users/angularmomentum/gifts).



> \+ ...so i invented an american wizarding boarding school called the orlean school, located in northern virginia about 2-3 hours west of DC.  
> \+ ages 8-18, roughly divided up american style: ages 8-10 are elementary school, 11-13 are middle school, 14-18 are high school, e.g. 'fourth years' at hogwarts would be 'sophomores' here.  
> \+ four houses and their respective heads: green kingfishers (backstrom); red owls (ovechkin); blue jays (oshie); golden eagles (greenie). there's no good/evil/nerd/boring assignments to any of the houses, but professor backstrom is a hardass.  
> \+ nicky teaches potions; ovi teaches flying; oshie teaches advanced charms; greenie teaches defensive magic (DADA at hogwarts); holtby teaches astronomy; kuzy and jojo and burky and tom (not appearing in this story) are quidditch coaches for each of the house teams, bc Sports are Serious here in america.  
> \+ quidditch in the potterverse is weirdly detailed but also not fleshed out, so i'm going to run american quidditch like aerial hockey, with 20+ players divided into four or five rolling lines.  
> \+ koldovstoretz is the pottermore-canon russian school; nikkaluokta is my invention, located near the swedish village of the same name that has several weeks of midnight sun during the year.  
> \+ thank you to my pals for listening to me whine about this for like a week straight, it was awesome

After the end-of-year exams and feasting at the Orlean School outside Washington, there was one more ritual for the student body: the week-long Quidditch tournament between the four house teams. As it had been for the last two years running, the teams to emerge from their changing rooms and march side-by-side to the pitch on the final day were Professor Backstrom’s Green Kingfishers and Professor Ovechkin’s Red Owls. 

On these walks from the room to the pitch, Nicky cast a sound ward around his team as they walked, the better to yell some final bits of advice without Sasha and his team hearing. Sasha, who had coached Quidditch at Orlean for five years, still had no idea what Nicky said to his team on their parade from the changing room to the pitch. 

Sasha did the same with his team, of course, but Nicky walked and spoke like he was giving far better advice than Sasha. _Whatever_. Sasha’s team was due to win the cup back this year. 

The two teams halted at the edge of the pitch, the screams and cheers from the crowd washing over them. Sasha and Nicky turned to their teams and the sound wards came off. 

“Play a good, fair game,” Nicky said to his team in the quiet, firm voice of his classroom. “Win this cup honestly or not at all.” Nicky turned to Sasha and nodded at Sasha’s team. “Good luck, Owls.” 

Sasha looked at his team, comprised mostly of girls and boys from the upper years. Some of them were seniors leaving Orlean tonight who would never play more than a pickup game of Quidditch again as they left to start their lives after the last feast. 

“Play with your whole heart,” Sasha told them, making sure to look each of them in the eye. “Play with your whole heart and you’ll never lose.”

Kuzya, the smart-ass coach of the Owls’ house team, chimed in from the back, “Except literally, but as a metaphor, you are always winners!” 

Sasha’s Owls laughed and Sasha did, too. It was always bittersweet to stand here for their last game and send them off. They didn’t need good luck, either of these teams; they were all Sasha’s luck already, both teams, every team, every student he had. 

But, tradition was tradition, so Sasha turned to the opposing team, Nicky’s team, and nodded at them. “Good luck, Kingfishers.” 

Nicky and Sasha, as the heads of house, would watch the game from the faculty box while the team coaches, Jojo for the Kingfishers and Kuzya for the Owls, took their places on the sidelines. The first row of the faculty box was empty; the view was better from high up and also, no one wanted to sit with Nicky and Sasha while their houses were playing, never mind when they were playing against each other.

“I know it’ll be five years this summer,” Nicky said as he settled into the seat on Sasha’s right, “But I still think it’s unfair to have the school flying instructor as a head of house. Aren’t you supposed to be impartial?”

“Not my fault I’m a moral inspiration to the Owls,” Sasha said. He didn’t have to look to know Nicky was boring holes in the side of his head with just his eyes. “And Kuzya coaches the team, I don’t. Very impartial, very fair. I can’t help where I’ve been, Nicky.”

“Still.”

“And you were almost professional, too.”

“Ugh.”

“I think you’re projecting.”

“I think you didn’t bring enough snacks.”

“Someone needed help finishing the Potions essays this morning, didn’t they?”

“Someone needed to make sure you followed my rubric on the Potions essays this morning.”

Sasha sighed. “You’re very hard on all of us, Professor Backstrom. It’s a good thing you demanded they discontinue Most Likely to Turn You into a Frog as part of the faculty awards, or your office would have been overrun with golden frog trophies by now.”

“I take offense to the idea that anyone in my classes would _deserve_ to be turned into a frog. Frogs are extremely intelligent creatures and not only that, their biology can adapt to nearly any shift in their environment ranging from temperature to the availability of partners and—”

“Oh, I see,” Sasha laughed. “Do you think you settled, then?”

Sasha glanced over; Nicky was already staring at him, a strange expression on his face. He seemed sly, pleased, and offended, all at once. 

“No,” Nicky said. “No, I don’t think I did.”

 

*

 

**FIVE YEARS AGO**

Outside Nicky’s Potions classroom, the rain was coming down in sheets. His sophomores were scheduled to have flying lessons after his class, but he held them late to keep them out of the rain and also because Potions would be far more useful to them in the long run than flying.

That was his rather biased opinion, but no one argued with him on a dreary day that kept them inside the school and warm in front of their cauldrons for another while.

Correction: none of his students argued with him. The new flying instructor, who threw open the door to Nicky’s classroom and tracked mud inside, had some words to say.

“So this is where they’re hiding,” he announced. “You were all due outside twenty minutes ago. Were you waiting for my invitation?”

Nicky raised a hand to the class to keep them in their seats as he approached Professor Ovechkin, who he had only met briefly at the feast on the first night of school earlier that week. “You must have noticed the weather outside,” said Nicky. “You still want to have a flying lesson in these conditions?”

Ovechkin stared at him like _Nicky_ was the one out of his mind, then pointed over Nicky’s shoulder at the class. “If sophomores can’t cast basic charms to keep themselves functional and mobile in weather like this, they have no business being sophomores. Give me my class, Professor, and take an early lunch.” 

Nicky stared right back at him; it was a fair argument, but he wasn’t going to give Ovechkin the satisfaction. 

“It appears you do have a flying lesson today,” Nicky called out to his class. “Good luck learning in this weather.”

“Don’t worry,” Ovechkin said. “If any of them fail to cast their charms and end up having a very unpleasant time in the air, I’ll send them right back to you for a blanket and a nice cup of tea, and an afternoon of grinding salamander bones.” Ovechkin whistled sharply at the class. “Come now! Gather your things, quickly! If the storm lets up, I’ll call down another one!” 

Nicky watched his students hustle out of the classroom and past Ovechkin into the hall. Ovechkin turned back at him and smiled, though Nicky couldn’t tell if he meant it as a threat or not. 

He filed the scene away and had to add to it later, at lunch, when he looked up from the staff table in the dining hall to see his sophomores reappear. His students were talking animatedly, not a single one showing even a hint of being forced to fly in the storm still raging outside. 

Ovechkin was the last to appear in the double doors of the hall, his own coat dry and far cleaner than it had been when he burst into Nicky’s classroom, his boots shining. Even his hair seemed to have had a brush applied to it within the past hour or so, something Nicky couldn’t have claimed when he first saw him. 

Nicky had stared too long. Ovechkin was coming to sit next to him. 

“I see the rain wasn’t a problem,” Nicky said. “Or you let them return to their rooms early for a change of clothes before punishing them with an afternoon of soaking wet uniforms and chills.”

Ovechkin shot him a look as he helped himself to the platters of food in front of them. “You think I send them outside without making sure they know those charms? Make sure they can cast them and hold them?”

That threw Nicky off because yes, he did think the bearded mountain man who tracked mud into his classroom and yelled at his students would absolutely do that to teach some fourteen-year-olds a lesson. He had taught long enough to see all types of eccentrics who took themselves and the image wizards should project far too seriously.

“Oh, because I show up to your room scary, to make sure they know how scary I get when they decide to skip flying for more time with the handsome Potions teacher,” Ovechkin continued. “No, Professor, much better for flying if they remember how to keep the wind and their robes and scarves and hair out of their faces. Much safer for them. They never understand flying, they never _love_ flying, if stupid things like that keep them grounded.” 

“I’m sorry for my assumptions,” Nicky replied. “It’s a very effective lesson.”

“You have yours, I have mine,” Ovechkin said. “You here long? At Orlean?”

“Three—no, four years,” Nicky said. “I studied in Sweden at Nikkaluokta.”

“The school without night? We heard about you at Koldovstoretz.” 

“Yes, I haven’t returned since I finished,” Nicky said. “Too many European schools had pureblood requirements that I didn’t fit, so it was ten years of blackout curtains for me.” 

“Not Koldovstoretz.”

“I thought it was too far north.”

“They don’t teach latitude or longitude in Sweden?”

“Koldovstoretz didn’t exactly advertise, either, particularly not to the younger sons of non-magical families in Sweden.”

“Few hours north of Saint Petersburg, for anyone stupid enough to drive there. I look on a map, maybe I went to school closer to Stockholm than you did.” 

“And how did you end up here?” Nicky asked. 

Ovechkin gathered up the sandwich he had made for himself. A condiment dripped down onto his sleeve as he stood up from the table to leave, but it vanished with a flick of Ovechkin’s fingers. “Tell you later,” Ovechkin said. “If I tell you now, maybe you won’t sit with me again.”

“You sat with me,” Nicky corrected. “And why should holding yourself hostage interest me?”

Ovechkin considered it and agreed. “Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t. Maybe I see you at dinner, maybe I don’t.”

“Maybe I’ll keep my next class late so you have to abduct them again for their flying lessons.”

Ovechkin took a massive bite out of his sandwich and shook his head. “Don’t do that,” he said. “Drama cuts into flying time. I won’t wait as long next time, and the littles know better now than to be late to my class.” 

With that he left, and Nicky looked down at his notes for his next class, which had gone from being written in a mix of English and Swedish to absolute nonsense that couldn’t keep his attention. 

 

*

 

“Nicky, you mad?”

“Yes, I’m mad,” Nicky said. “Your team has scored eight goals in thirty minutes.”

“I know, I know,” Sasha sighed with a quick glance at his watch. “Twenty-five.”

“Shut up.”

“Glare harder, Professor.”

“Thank you, I will.” 

Their silence lasted for a good fifteen seconds, until Correa on the Owls scored another goal against the Kingfishers.

“That’s four goals for her,” Nicky said. “If she scores one more in the next minute, I’m calling for review.”

“Shame for your Kingfishers it’s such a clear day,” Sasha said. “Our secret strategy worked! Score lots of goals on sunny days because the snitch is ten times harder to spot in an open field with the sun shining down so bright on a little gold ball.”

“It’s flown by my face three times already,” Nicky grumbled. “Where was my seeker?”

“ _Not_ divebombing his broom into the faculty box?”

“I said they should play a good, fair game, and that includes diving into the stands if the snitch is anywhere near me,” Nicky said. 

“Oh, Nicky. I’m sorry the babies haven’t taken the hint and killed you for glory yet.”

Sasha wrapped his arm around the back of Nicky’s chair and smiled to himself as Nicky grumbled again and sat a little closer, his shoulder pressing close against Sasha. Sasha would get elbowed in the gut next time the Kingfishers did anything, really, but for now it was very nice to sit with Nicky in the sunshine and watch both teams’ beaters viciously fly after the two bludgers and lob them at each other at every opportunity. 

“Your house isn’t getting the cup back,” Nicky said. “It’s hideous and tacky and it’s ours.” 

“You do this to Greenie and Oshie when their houses win?”

“No,” Nicky admitted. “But it happens so rarely that I’m almost happy for them. Sometimes.” 

It was the last day of the school year and Navrátilová of the Kingfishers raced past both of the Owls’ beaters and pitched the quaffle past their keeper for their second goal of the game. 

“Did she tell you she has a training camp in California next month?” Nicky asked.

“Good,” Sasha said. “She has talent. When she gets on a team, maybe she sends us a couple of free tickets. She could take pity on her grumpy head of house and her very supportive, very wonderful flying instructor.” 

“If this stadium weren’t full of children, I would bite you.”

“You promise? What if I start a fire and all the children leave?”

“Oh my god, Sasha.”

 

*

 

**THREE YEARS AGO**

After Sasha’s second year at Orlean, Professor Fedorov summoned the three other heads of houses for a meeting to discuss the question of whether they should offer Sasha the head of house position for the Red Owls. 

Professor Oshie, who taught Advanced Charms and acted as head of house for the Blue Jays, answered with a resounding and somewhat undignified, “Hell _yeah_. We gotta keep him, Feds. He’d love the head of house gig.”

Professor Green, the head of house for the Golden Eagles, shot a careful look across the table at Nicky. Unfortunately for Greenie, he was Nicky’s closest friend at Orlean, and the person Nicky often complained to when Sasha had done something awful like save him a seat at breakfast or bring Nicky the occasional rare weeds that cropped up at the edges of the woods on campus, things Nicky needed for his research but often missed since he was inside for so much of the day. Greenie knew how often Sasha was in Nicky’s thoughts, but did he know what was in Sasha’s thoughts?

“You think?” Greenie asked Oshie. Greenie taught Defensive Magic at Orlean; it was too accurate to his specialty, having Greenie act as the most circumspect person at every table. “He’s only been here two years and he’s always the last to arrive for the school year and the first to leave.”

“Nothing wrong with that,” chimed in Professor Fedorov, because of course he would. “He has strong connections to his country, not unlike most of us.”

No one looked at Nicky, the _most_ of us that prevented Fedorov from saying _all_ of us.

“Of course not. He works really hard, loves the kids.” Greenie sighed. “I mean, does he _want_ to stay? We have ten years’ of classes here, kids from eight to eighteen, and he’d be looking out for a quarter of them. Does he want that kind of responsibility or is he—is he just a good flying instructor and a good coach? Cuz there’s nothing wrong with that, if that’s all he wants.”

“It’s a fair point,” Fedorov said. Oshie looked deep in thought, too; he probably liked Sasha the best out of anyone at the table, but Oshie was someone who had arrived at Orlean and immediately put down his roots, taking on as many student-run clubs as wanted him for their adviser before he was made head of house. “We wouldn’t want classes of students attached to him, only for him to leave without reason before he could see them through.”

Nicky finally spoke, but only to echo the phrase: “Without reason.” 

The others looked at him and Nicky startled to have all that attention on him.

“I don’t know him very well yet, but he—Ovechkin doesn’t do things without reason. He may leave sooner than he expected, but it wouldn’t be _without reason_. It wouldn’t be without consideration and planning. That isn’t who he is.” Nicky looked away from everyone. “Offer him the post and see what he says. Only he knows his plans, what he wants.”

The other three of them nodded and Fedorov took the lead again. “Well, then. We seem to be in agreement. I will speak to Professor Ovechkin about taking the post. It may be that we will have a new head of house before the closing feast. Thank you all.” 

The three younger professors stood from the table as Fedorov left. Once he was gone, Oshie came over to Nicky’s side, hands in his pockets, and shoulder checked Nicky gently.

“So?” Oshie grinned.

“So…”

“You don’t hate Ovi anymore?”

“What?” Nicky asked. “I never—I don’t hate him, I never—who said that?”

“You always look like you want to die when he sits next to you at dinner and shit.”

Greenie cackled. “Come on, Osh, that’s just his face, you know that.”

“I—I don’t look like—really?” Nicky asked. “Like I want to _die_?”

“Yeah, a little bit, buddy,” Oshie laughed. “The kids love the rivalry, though. You know, prim-and-proper Professor Backstrom and totally wild Professor Ovechkin.”

“We… teach at the same school? We’re on the same team?”

“Mmm, you sure are.” 

“I don’t like where this is going,” Nicky announced. “I need to finish writing an exam.”

“You want help?” Greenie asked. “Because I… can throw stuff at you if you look like you’re falling asleep. Can’t actually help with the Potions stuff, though.”

“Thank you for the not-offer, I appreciate it,” Nicky said as he left. 

The meeting wasn’t far from Nicky’s mind as he worked, but it came back at dinner when he took his usual seat at one end of the staff table with a book and the seat next to him was empty. At some point in their acquaintance, Sasha had begun to arrive to meals when Nicky did, if not a little bit before, though he always had to leave before Nicky to prepare for his next classes. Now there was no Sasha and Nicky tried not to think about it; Fedorov had likely caught him after his last class of the afternoon for their little talk, so he might miss dinner all together. 

Nicky packed a plate and left the dining hall to return to his office. The exam still needed some work and he needed the quiet that night. He was surprised to get as much quiet as he did, but not surprised that it was eventually Sasha who interrupted him. 

“You don’t skip dinner,” Sasha said as he entered the Potions classroom. “Just have it here. You and a book, like always.”

“Not always, but sometimes,” Nicky said. “I have to finish writing this exam.”

“Won’t be long, then. You talk to Fedorov for me? To stay?”

“I—” 

It was starting to trouble him, the way nothing made sense when Sasha entered a room. The ingredient list in front of him had been fine just a moment ago, and now Nicky couldn’t remember the brewing time for this particular reptile scale if his life depended on it. 

“I told him he should speak to you,” Nicky finally said. “I said I didn’t know if you would want the head of house post, but that if—if you took it, you would—I think you would be good for it.”

“Isn’t what he said,” Sasha said. He had taken a few steps into the classroom, his voice quieter as he approached Nicky. 

“No,” Nicky said. “I said you wouldn’t leave without reason. I said if you wanted to stay, you would stay, and if you wanted to go, you would go. But you—we can depend on you, Sasha. That was all I said.”

“You depend on me, Nicky?”

“We—it isn’t just me, we all do. The students do. They depend on you very much. I don’t think flying has ever been so popular as when you’ve taught it.” 

Nicky stood up from his desk because this was ridiculous, Sasha coming closer and looming over him when he was barely a hair taller than Nicky, thick-soled boots and good posture be damned. Nicky, who didn’t dare to think what would happen when he stood up, when he took a step closer to Sasha, inhaled sharply as Sasha placed his hands on Nicky’s hips.

“Do you depend on me, Nicky?” he asked. “Because I do. I wanted to stay. I wanted to stay and teach, stay for the kids, but I thought—no, imagined that you might want me to stay, too.”

“If you left, I could start winning the Most Likely to Make You Cry award again,” Nicky said. How Nicky’s hands had ended up on Sasha’s shoulders was beyond him, but since they were there, he wouldn’t move them, unless it was to let his fingertips touch the edges of Sasha’s jaw, his fingers curling in Sasha’s hair. “But if you stay, then I suppose I don’t mind the competition.”

“No,” Sasha said. “You don’t mind me at all.”

“No, I don’t.” 

The words had barely left Nicky’s mouth before Sasha was kissing him, lingering and deep kisses like they were starting something—like when they _had_ started things earlier in the school year, casual things, easy things at night in their rooms. Nicky opened his mouth to Sasha, kissing him as deeply and stupidly as he pleased in his own classroom, holding in his hands this man that he would have for just a while longer. 

Sasha pulled away, but Nicky darted in and stole another quick kiss. He was staying, he was staying with Nicky. 

“Turn on a few lamps in here,” Sasha whispered. “Finish writing your exams. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Yes, all right,” Nicky said. “Yes, you will.” 

Sasha kissed him again and left his classroom. Nicky turned on his lamp and sat at his desk again, Sasha’s footsteps echoing down the hall, Sasha’s kisses still on his lips. It was early. He could finish this exam and head up for the night, because Nicky had somewhere to be.

 

*

 

Near the two-hour mark of the game, Sasha noticed the snitch and noticed the exact moment Wyatt, the Owls’ seeker, spotted the snitch.

Nicky noticed, too, and hissed next to him, “Fuck.”

“It’s not over,” Sasha said, but they both knew better. 

Wyatt didn’t miss. He gripped his broom and took an astounding angle straight up into the air, a move that made Sasha’s heart soar because he remembered when he had taught Wyatt’s class that exact handling move last year. Wyatt, the handle of his broom against his chest as he soared upwards, twisted sharply to continue flying up. Now he had the sun at his back and out of his eyes, and he easily caught the snitch a hundred feet above their heads. He yelled and the stadium burst into screams and trumpets and the terrible goal song Greenie had helped the Owls choose at the start of the year because he was a truly awful man. 

Nicky and Sasha stood up in the faculty box and shook hands, then embraced each other warmly. Sasha rested a hand in Nicky’s hair and Nicky held him closer for the brief moment before they let each other go to meet their teams. Before they could leave, Wyatt the seeker flew to the faculty box, hovering above them, the snitch still in his hand. 

“It worked, it worked!” he yelled down at Sasha, real tears in his eyes. “I was so scared the whole time, like _so_ fucking scared, Professor, but I did it, it worked!”

“Of course it did,” Sasha called back at him. “You practiced with Kuzya a hundred times this year, of course it worked! Go to the team, we’ll be down soon!” 

Down on the pitch, the teams were going through their handshake lines, their respective teenagers as much relieved to have won or lost as to just have the game be _over_. 

Nicky nudged Sasha in the side and motioned to where Kuzya and Jojo were standing, laughing and commiserating as the Owls were beginning to swarm Kuzya. “Go celebrate with your team, before they think I made you into a sore loser.”

“You _are_ a sore loser,” Sasha laughed. “But you could never make me one, promise.”

“I know, I know,” Nicky sighed. “But I get to take you home, so really, everyone else loses every night.”

Sasha nodded very solemnly and reached for Nicky’s hand. “You’re ridiculous and petty and I love you.”

“You’re absurd and broody and I love you.” Nicky squeezed Sasha’s hand and made his way over to his team as Sasha crossed the pitch to his. His team needed help lifting Kuzya into the air and getting him to make that _wheeeeeee!!_ sound, and Sasha was just the person to help.

 

*

 

**ONE YEAR AGO**

Students at Orlean came from all over because a good school was a good school; the properties and application of magic allowed them to bend stupid things like time and distance in transporting their students. Nicky always had a few European students in his house, most of them Swedes like himself who promised to bring him back anything he wanted when they returned in the fall, that they would send postcards by fire of the places they would go over the summer, and would he promise, please, to go somewhere fun this year?

“Yes, I promise,” he said, and sent them off on their way. 

It was Orlean tradition that on the students’ last day, when the Quidditch tournament was over, when the trophies and medals were handed out, when everyone had feasted in the dining hall, when the students had collected their bags outside and began to portkey away from campus before it became dark—

When all that was over, the professors gathered on the roof of the astronomy tower to get _wrecked_. It very much helped that the astronomy “tower” at Orlean wasn’t a tower at all, but an observatory with an open air dome to accommodate their very 21st century telescope and, most importantly, a very large, flat roof adjacent to the dome that had a view for miles. 

As always, Nicky was one of the last to arrive at the astronomy not-tower. It was fully dark and the only sounds echoing across the Orlean campus came from the faculty party on the roof. Professor Holtby, who taught Astronomy and was the only reason they were all allowed up on the roof anyway, had charmed small soft lights the size of fireflies to float through the air—or maybe they were actual fireflies and Nicky had no fucking idea because he was only on this roof once or twice a year, max. Most of the fireflies he interacted with were already dead and ready to be thrown into a cauldron. 

At Holtby’s side was Burakovsky, the newest and youngest member of the faculty. He had been brought on in the fall to coach the Jays’ Quidditch team, but he often found his way to Nicky’s classroom when he was homesick to hear Swedish spoken to him. He and Jojo often came to Nicky’s classroom just to catch up and chatter, so tonight Nicky approached Andre and Holtby with a little smile. 

“So this was your first year,” Nicky said to Andre.

“I’m coming back,” Andre said immediately. “This is just—” He looked around, less like he was thinking of the right word and more like he was trying to watch Holtby without actually watching him. “There’s a lot of reasons to come back,” he said carefully. “I like the coaching, the students, the people. I like everyone here.” 

“I’m glad,” Nicky said. “And I’m not surprised. Good. I’m glad you’re staying. We’re glad to have you.” 

Nicky left them and began to make the rounds, gauging how much people had drank already and whether he wanted to catch up with them. Something was nagging him, but it was a while before he placed it: he had yet to see Sasha up here tonight. He had a drink and spent some time catching up with Greenie, but still there was no Sasha. 

“He was up here before,” Greenie said. “I think he went downstairs when it started to get crowded.”

“Downstairs where? With the telescope?” Nicky asked.

“Yeah, in the observatory, with the telescope, Sherlock,” Greenie laughed. “He’s probably down there since it’s open. Or, you know. Maybe he’s back at school. You know. In your _rooms_.”

“Oh my god, please don’t,” Nicky said. 

“What, don’t you—”

“We do, very much, but not from your mouth, thank you.” Nicky shook his head and waved to Greenie as he walked back to the stairs that would lead down to the observatory. 

The truth was that Nicky didn’t like the astronomy tower. (Observatory? Orlean was close to two hundred years old and the observatory was still labeled the astronomy tower for tradition’s sake, even though it was, again, not a fucking tower.) The tower was Holtby’s domain, his classes much smaller to accommodate the careful and precise work they did with measurements, magic, and the very expensive telescope they had installed in the building. The telescope was large enough that the building was _mostly_ telescope and _mostly_ its base and mechanics, the rest of the dome empty space to allow the thing to function.

Of course, as soon as Nicky entered the creepy, silent room with the telescope, he found Sasha. There he was, in a seat he had pulled up to the eyepiece of the very expensive telescope, hunched over to look at wherever it was pointed. Nicky made his footsteps a little heavier and that caught Sasha’s attention. 

“Holtz opened it for me,” Sasha said as he swiveled around in the seat. “Come, come look.”

“Where are you looking?”

“Saturn,” Sasha said. “Holtz said it’s closest to us this time of year and at the right point so the sun lights it up for us. If we stay here until midnight, it’ll look even clearer.”

“Can I tell you,” Nicky hesitated, “That I don’t like looking through the telescope?”

“You don’t? Really?”

“I don’t—” Nicky took a breath. “Everything is too _big_.” Sasha burst out laughing and Nicky shot him a look. “Don’t laugh! Doesn’t that scare you? You’re sitting in front of a telescope the size of an airplane, staring at something—it’s—I can’t _imagine_ the size of it, and you look at it—”

“I know,” Sasha said. “But it’s a good scare. Like flying. Like jumping into the ocean. Like apparating to a new place. Every time feels like the first time, like if you do this, you can do anything.” 

Nicky slowly approached the telescope, his eyes scanning the size of it before he looked down at Sasha, still in the chair at the base. Sasha stood up to let Nicky have the seat; instead, Nicky reached for Sasha and pulled him in for a kiss. 

“All those things are terrible,” Nicky laughed. 

“Kissing me, is that terrible, too?”

Nicky shook his head. “No. It’s the best of those things.”

Sasha let him go. Nicky sat at the telescope and peered into the eyepiece. 

“You see something?” Sasha asked.

“Yes,” Nicky said. “A fucking planet.” 

“See the moons? Those little spots—”

“Each of those is a moon?”

“Yes. The colors, too. See those?”

“Looks like the color of oatmeal.”

“Yes, fine, but _good_ oatmeal, with the cinnamon swirl you like.”

Oatmeal was a good moment for Nicky to slide away from the eyepiece and seek Sasha out again. This time Sasha was standing, so Nicky could bury his face in his shirt, against his stomach, and Sasha could hold him there. 

“It’s all right, Saturn is very far away. Space is out there, we’re here.”

“Only people without magic could be stupid enough to build something to go there, like apparating wasn’t dangerous enough.” 

“Oh my god, listen to you,” Sasha laughed. All the same, Sasha ran his fingers through Nicky’s hair, holding him close for as long as Nicky would stay. “I want to go somewhere for the summer.”

“Oh. You do.”

“I want _us_ to go somewhere. Where do you want to go?”

“Not space.”

“Good, no flights there anyway.” Sasha tugged at Nicky’s hair, so Nicky looked up at him. “I don’t know what kinds of places you like. You don’t like Sweden, you don’t like the summer here. Where should we go?”

“Where do you want to go?” Nicky asked. “I’d go anywhere you want. Even space, if you talked me into it.”

“Really?” Sasha asked. 

“Really,” Nicky said. 

“Okay. We start with a beach, maybe save outer space for some other time.”

“I like beaches.”

“But not the ocean? We can go to a lake.”

“No, I like the ocean. Just—I like that it scares me. You scare me a little, too.”

“I do?”

“I can’t—I don’t have the English for it. Like looking at Saturn, but looking too close—like I’ll disappear in you, if I get too close.”

Sasha shook his head and leaned down to kiss him. Nicky tried to hold onto him, to prolong the kiss, but Sasha broke it off to talk, _why_? 

“No, no you won’t. You and your potions and your science, you could never. Never, okay? You’re too stubborn for that and so am I, and you know it.” Sasha stood up again. “We’ll find beaches for the summer. Now: upstairs for the party, or back to our room?”

“Our room,” Nicky said. “Take me home.”

Sasha nodded and took his hand, and led Nicky away from the astronomy tower, back to their rooms, back to where they belonged.

 

*

 

That night, once the last feast was over, once all the students had portkeyed to their various homes and vacation destinations, once the Orlean Cup had been temporarily installed in the foyer of the Red Owls’ dorm, Nicky and Sasha were on the roof of the astronomy tower/observatory/whatever they were calling it that year. There were some lawn chairs scattered around, but Nicky and Sasha were sitting in a corner of the roof next to the cooler of good beer that none of the North Americans wanted to drink because it tasted like beer. 

“Are these fireflies?” Nicky asked as one of Holtby’s soft floating lights landed on his hand. “Oh, they are. I always forget. They look like floating charms, but we don’t need those, do we?”

“I need to take you on more moonlit walks around campus,” Sasha said. 

“I have enough bugs in my classroom because of the ingredients I grow on the windowsill, I don’t need more,” Nicky replied. 

“You have half a greenhouse growing in your classroom,” Sasha laughed. “Your _windowsill_ is floor-to-ceiling windows.”

“Natural sunlight is an important component in brewing elementary potions,” Nicky said. “And growing my own ingredients.”

“I love your windowsill greenhouse.” 

“Good. You better. They were here before you and some of those vines will outlive you.”

“Will they? Do you know something I don’t?”

“Just the life expectancy of plants. They’ll outlive me, too.”

“I wonder if Kuzya brought out our good vodka stash yet. I’m worried how much darker this will get if you keep drinking beer.”

Nicky laughed and slouched a bit, leaning more into Sasha and the arm Sasha had wrapped around him. Sasha pressed a kiss to his hair and let another firefly land on his beer hand. 

“Where are we going this summer?” Nicky asked. 

“I know,” Sasha sighed. “I was so busy getting tickets to the Quidditch World Cup next summer, I didn’t even think of where we could go this year.” Sasha looked down a little, but he could only see the top of Nicky’s head, the blond/brown hair and the occasional scraggly grey trying to blend in with the rest. “Hot or cold?”

“Ugh, neither.”

“What about a road trip? A no-magic road trip like in the movies. I could get a car.”

“You could,” Nicky said. “We _have_ a car or two here, for whatever reason. Can you drive?”

“How hard could it be?”

“We could bicycle around America.”

“This is the first day in a week you’ve spent more than twenty minutes outside and I don’t know if you remember, but America is very big.”

“I trust myself on a bike more than I trust you with a car.”

Sasha fake-gasped. “It’s the end of the year, I should have been prepared for this sort of betrayal.”

“It isn’t a betrayal, saying I know myself on a bike, which I’ve ridden before, better than I know you with a car, which you’ve never driven before.”

Sasha called out, “Kuzya! Where should we go for vacation!”

“Go to my mother’s house,” Kuzya called back. “So my wife and I can take a real trip somewhere.”

“I don’t know why I thought that would work,” Sasha said.

“It’s fine,” Nicky sighed. “We’ll figure something out.”

“We will. You’ll have a few days to recover from this terrible cup loss—”

“Don’t look at the notebook on my desk. I’m already thinking of roster changes for next year.”

“Nicky, they _just_ left. And that’s Jojo’s job.”

“Jojo might want a little nudge. Jojo might _need_ a little nudge.”

“What’s a little nudge feel like?”

Sasha expected the elbow to his stomach, and laughed at the chance to pull Nicky closer. “No rush,” Sasha murmured against Nicky’s hair. “We have the summer.” 

Nicky turned his head and pulled Sasha in for a kiss, the heady taste of beer still on his lips, one kiss turning into a rush of quick ones as Nicky laughed and refused to let Sasha go. 

“Or we just stay up here all summer with Holtz,” Sasha said. “He won’t mind.”

“Perfect,” Nicky said. “Let me know when Holtz says okay to move onto the roof of the observatory. I need a three-year lease, a _real_ non-magical washer/dryer, full amenities—”

Sasha kissed him again; Nicky’s list of demands could wait, and the summer could, too.

**Author's Note:**

> [twitter](https://twitter.com/screamlet) \+ [reblog](http://screamlet.tumblr.com/post/160680153151/)
> 
>  
> 
> \+ yeah, the school has an observatory, because some wizard alum got rich as fuck and bought them a magical observatory bc their magical edge helped them run the space program or something. look, shut up, it's a boarding school with an observatory, let them be rich.


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